Dying Light: The Beast is the DLC turned full-blown release from Polish developer Techland. Technically the third entry in a zombie-killing franchise that debuted a decade ago, The Beast brings back original protagonist Kyle Crane, tosses him into a new setting of Castor Woods, and dials up the horror for something much more aligned with the first game. The result: a familiar yet endlessly fun post-apocalyptic experience.

For fans of the series, you may (or may not) be glad to know that Kyle is back and beastlier than ever. After enduring over a decade of experimental torment under the rule of The Baron, Kyle escapes into the aforementioned nature reserve of Castor Woods.

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However, this grunting parkour nut (voiced again by Roger Craig Smith), is now infused with the DNA of the undead, making him part man and – you guessed it – part beast.

Narratively, this leaves a scarred protagonist on the path of revenge, hunting down The Baron’s messed-up zombie experiments to fuse their blood with his. The hope is that Kyle and his merry cast of side characters grow strong enough to take The Baron and his men down.

We love how unapologetically daft the narrative is here with secret zombie labs, monologue-spouting English baddies, and even a touch of the supernatural. It’s all fun and games, but done with such a self-serious approach. We couldn’t help but chuckle more than a few times at the latest Crane-based shenanigans.

The narrative of course acts as a vessel for its new setting and the titular Beastly powers. The former is a big selling point for longtime fans of the series. Castor Woods is a wilderness surrounded by woodlands and picturesque mountains. It’s neither as big as the offering from Dying Light 2: Stay Human, nor as dense as what we saw in the original game – but with a mixture of open fields and a dense city known as Old Town, it’s a fun place to explore.

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With log cabins, babbling brooks, and what can be imagined as a once bustling hub of civilization, Castor Woods feels like an amalgamation of the original Dying Light and its DLC The Following – noted also by the return of vehicles.

It’s filled with your typical onslaught of open world locales – mental asylums, old power stations, town squares – and it feels cliché in that way. But to us, this is actually more of a boon; the map isn’t necessarily surprising, but it feels like video game comfort food. There were plenty of times we’d arrive at a new point of interest, and get giddy at the prospect of exploring it.

You’ll traverse the map with the returning first-person parkour system. We wouldn’t say it feels any better than it has before – from what we can remember at least – but Techland has amped the number of custom parkour animations. Regardless though, it’s great fun to swing across ledges and leap from rooftop to rooftop, and when you get back into the groove of it, it can feel really nice. Also, drop-kicking zombies off of rooftops will never get old.

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The interesting change with The Beast is that it features a number of flatter terrains. The hope from Techland here is that you aren’t always just relying on parkour, and that it levels the playing field for the undead.

Comparatively, these sections can be quite dull to traverse. There are little parkour sprinkles here or there, like wooden stumps jutting out of rivers, allowing you to hop across, and then there are of course jeeps for short stints at driving. There’s no fast travel system here so jeeps can feel like a lifeline, and it’s always entertaining to watch zombies turn to mulch as you ram them.

Traversal and map design do take on a different feel when the sun goes down. The Beast is undoubtedly amping up the fear factor, with pitch black nights, creepy sound design, and the uber-zombies (called Volatiles) biting at your heels as you desperately run away.

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It’s a fantastic mechanic that many players felt lost its sharp edge in the last game, so it’s nice to see Techland doubling down on it here. Seeing the sun gradually set as you hoof it to a nearby safe zone, with the subsequent wristwatch alarm and howling of the Volatiles is brilliantly unnerving. The following stealth and chase sequences are easily the highlight of the game.

When you aren’t trying to hide from the overpowered Volatiles, combat remains largely the same as it has in previous entries, which is to say it’s still pretty great. You’re primarily slashing, chopping, bashing, and stabbing zombies and humans alike with an assortment of melee weapons.

The gore system on show is actually quite grotesque (a positive), and we enjoyed the dynamic feel to fights, as it was actually quite easy to get overwhelmed – even on the regular difficulty. Stamina management is paramount, especially on the tougher settings, so it’s key to utilise not just brute strength but also the environment, your moveset, and what appendages you’re hacking at.

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After the Reloaded Edition of Dying Light 2, guns are a tad more prominent here, although not overwhelmingly so. Every now and again, you’ll come across enemies with rifles, SMGs, and pistols that feel very tactile to use.

We think in previous entries, it was obvious you weren’t really supposed to use guns, and controls felt stilted as a result. However, here it’s much improved – not Call of Duty levels, but certainly a lot tighter, and a lot punchier thanks to DualSense haptics.

Guns are then great in the case of emergency, and usually only come with a magazine or two of ammunition. But we did have a few occasions where we saved up our guns to become parkouring bullet barrages. These fights were hugely enjoyable.

Melee weapons most definitely remain the focus, though, as you’d expect. With the ability to repair and mod your favourite machetes, sledgehammers, and knuckle dusters, it’s good fun mixing and matching the different armaments for various zombie tinged situations. We’re glad that the slight medieval tinge from the last game remains in places with weapon design, but we did find the weapons in Dead Island 2 a tad more exciting.

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So let’s get into those Beast Powers. During combat, Kyle will build up a sort of rage meter which, when filled, will send him into a manic limb-tearing frenzy. It’s here that you can rip zombies apart with ease, and there are a number of gnarly kill animations. There’s actually a skill tree for this too, which you’ll earn points for by killing the big bosses scattered across the world.

Beast Mode (and yes, it’s actually called that) isn’t anything new per se, but it can switch up the dynamic of combat, especially in those early hours when it activates automatically. It’s a good laugh tearing through hordes of the undead, and is a great power shift as it allows you to actually go toe-to-toe with a Volatile – just make sure you kill it before Beast Mode expires.

Another string to The Beast’s bow is that the majority of the experience is playable in four-player co-op. With its drop-kicking carnage, co-op will have you in stitches. It’s so manically daft that we couldn’t help but love it. It does have some issues though, like the aggressive level gating, which never really feels like an issue when playing solo. Without level scaling for lower-levelled players, it can stall the fun.

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Lastly, we played the game on the PS5 Pro with zero issue. The game runs at a stable 60 frames-per-second on Performance Mode. While it’s not the best looking game ever, it’s easy to get swept up in the setting as you leap across the rooftops as the shadows lengthen at sunset. It can be very cinematic at times. As mentioned, haptics aren’t anywhere near first-party level, but they are certainly present, giving The Beast an extra little kick.

Conclusion

Dying Light: The Beast is far from the most original game out there. Hell, it’s not even the most original Dying Light. But we’d be lying if we said we didn’t come away entertained. It embraces its silliness in the best ways across its ridiculous story, gorily violent combat, and fun to explore setting. Some level-gating issues in co-op and duller flatter terrain hold it back in spots, but to us this is the best Dying Light yet.